Monday, January 10, 2005

Atheist lawsuit is a misguided exercise

Michael Newdow, the Atheist who grab the spotlight with his suit to take "under God" out of the Pledge of allegiance, is at it again. He has filed suit in D.C. to prevent the saying of prayers during the Bush inauguration. There is so much wrong with this, I don't even know where to start. As I have pointed out before, the inauguration is privately funded, so even those that want to make the imaginary separation doctrine argument are stymied by that fact. The prayer has been a tradition for as long as we have been a nation, but then again sodomy laws were a tradition too. So I would instead argue that freedom of religion does not constitute freedom from religion. If a group of people, any group, choose to freely associate and, in doing so, exercise their religious freedom, it is totalitarian for an outsider to seek to prevent that exercise thereof. If we elected an Atheist president, I would not expect him to choose to continue the tradition. If a Buddhist or a Hindu became president, I imagine we would be treated to a very different prayer. But to attempt to use the power of the court to impose a belief (or non-belief) on those that do not subscribe to that belief is as counter to the fundamental principles on which this nation and our freedoms are based as any other infringement on the sovereignty of the individual. I am not a Christian and subscribe to no form of mysticism, but it is counter-intuitive to me to expect anyone else to compromise their beliefs to accommodate me. With freedom comes an obligation to accept the exercise of freedoms by others so long as their free exercise does not impose on your ability to freely exercise your own rights. Mr. Newdow is arguing a negative, his position is irrational and anti-intellectual. It is like saying that if a Democrat articulates a position on an issue, it infringes on the right of a Republican to articulate a different opinion. I am not religious, but I am not weakened by the expression of religious rights. To the contrary, I am strengthened by it because in expressing their religious rights, they are tacitly accepting my right to express my beliefs. That is what freedom is all about.

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A view from the inside of the Iraq insurgency; Georges Malbrunot, a French journalist, spent four months as a hostage and now he is talking about what he observed. Read the story here.

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Can we please have a scandal that isn't referred to as ______gate. I was just reading Michelle Malkin's site where she is comparing, I kid you not, Rathergate & Paidpunditgate. Stop the madness.